English Reading Comprehension

Once the leaders of the rebellion were executed or dispersed, the British Government admitted its previous errors - tacitly, of course - and sought to rectify old wrongs. King George III, who had complained that he would go mad if his American colonies were lost, regained his spirits and proved surprisingly forgiving. No more than a third of the colonists had supported the insurrection, in any event, and six years of bloodshed and hardship that followed were quickly forgotten in the era of good feeling after the war. The colonies were placed under a unified government for the first time, and a new capital was established across the East River from Manhattan, in the fertile fields of the Brooklyn.